


New Horizon

by DetectiveRoboRyan



Series: Intimate With Brokenness [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Echoes: Mou Hitori no Eiyuu Ou | Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia
Genre: 2am Spite-Fueled Writing Extravaganza, Childhood Friends, Cute Kids, F/F, Fluff, Genny and Nomah are there but they're just mentioned, I call this one, Lesbians for the Sake of Lesbians, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-03
Updated: 2017-07-03
Packaged: 2018-11-22 19:27:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11386830
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DetectiveRoboRyan/pseuds/DetectiveRoboRyan
Summary: When they're ten, Celica pushes Mae off of a Novis pier. While wringing the seawater from her shirt, Mae decides that they're going to be best friends.She succeeds, in a way.





	New Horizon

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is dedicated to all the clowns out there, who think that i give a shit ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯
> 
> yes, i really am this petty!

When Mae is ten-and-a-half, a new girl arrives on Novis.  
  
She lands in the cold season, bundled in a thick sweater that comes down to her knees and a big sheepskin jacket and a garish maroon scarf that swaddles her face but clashes horribly with the gingery-red of her curls. She steps off the boat holding the hand of an old man in tarnished armor that Mae couldn't pick out of a crowd and really couldn't care less about, sniffling and glaring and looking utterly miserable. But Mae's father pulls her away before she can try to make friends.  
  
Mae meets her the next day, when she and Boey go to the priory for lessons as always, and there's a new girl in the back corner. She's used to seeing little sniffly Genny there, who's eight years old and shaped like a short-legged kitten and has a head full of fluffy curls that float around like some sort of confection, a mouth full of gaps where her baby teeth have fallen out in groups, and brown eyes that look far too big for her head. But the new girl is quiet and surly and scribbles her notes like she's trying to take out her anger on the poor parchment, and snaps her quills in her hand when she gets particularly annoyed. She goes through six on the first day, and she glowers and storms away when Mae tries to introduce herself.  
  
"I guess she just doesn't like you," Boey tells her.  
  
"Nonsense," Mae decides. "I just need to try harder."  
  
Mae does try harder. The new girl stiffs her at every turn and Mae isn't quite sure why, but she's not going to give up. Once the weather warms the new girl takes to sitting on the piers and watching the boats move in and out of port, leaving with empty nets and coming back with shiploads of fish. Merchant ships deliver corn and rye and sugar and coffee from the mainland every day, and sometimes (and this is always a treat) they bring pickles and marmalades. In years past, when Mae and Boey were the only children on the island (except for Boey's siblings, but they were all older so they were no fun), they'd sit on the piers and give the boats names they thought were far better, like _Snail Eater_ and _Fartlord_ and _Princess Bellybutton._ (Then they turned eight and it wasn't nearly as funny.)  
  
The new girl sits on the pier alone. The little ribbon around her head rustles in the breeze, and the springtime sun shines on her shoulders left bare by the cut of her dress.  
  
Mae plops down beside her. She sniffles, her nose still red and runny from her hay fever, and grins. "Hi," she says.  
  
The new girl glares and whips her head the other direction, smacking Mae in the face with her curls. They smell like salt and the lavender the clerics in the priories use to clean the linens.  
  
"I'm Mae," she tries again. "What's your name?"  
  
Her attempted friend doesn't reply.  
  
"Where're you from?" Mae asks. "I saw you come in last winter on that smelly fish boat. Novis is a big change, probably."

"What do _you_ know?" the new girl scoffs. She speaks! Mae grins— this is progress.  
  
"Not much," Mae admits. "I mean I know math and stuff, and I'm better at magic than Boey, even if he doesn't like to admit it." She stops to sniffle again and rubs her nose on the back of her hand— her father hates it when she does that. "I was just guessing, s'all."  
  
The new girl whips back around just to glare at Mae, who's grinning blithely— enough so she doesn't even notice it when the new girl shoves her, hard as her freckly llittle arms can push, into the pier.  
  
Mae sputters, spitting salt water— but she learned to swim before she learned how to form sentences, so she shakes the ocean water from her eyes and looks back up at the girl on the pier.  
  
"Hey," she calls, mildly affronted— but only mildly. "What was _that_ for?"  
  
The new girl _hmphs_. "Because it's _very_ _rude_ to talk to a girl before you've been introduced and before you know her name," she calls back.  
  
Mae rolls her eyes despite the stinging. "Well, _duh_ , that's why I'm _asking_ ," she says. "We can't be friends if I don't even know your name, right?"  
  
The new girl blinks. Then she _hmphs_ again and folds her arms. She's freckly, but the rest of her skin is fair enough it'd burn to a crisp in the sunlight. "Fine, then," she admits. "It's Celica."  
  
Celica! Mae has something to call her! This is good! This is excellent!  
  
"Celica!" Mae says happily. "That's a fantastic name!"  
  
"It's just a name," Celica mutters.  
  
"So?" Mae replies. And Celica doesn't have an answer for that. She turns and leaves the pier, and Boey waits for Mae when she climbs back up the post and squeezes the water from her hair.  
  
"Are you _sure_ you still want to be her friend, Mae?" Boey asks, frowning.  
  
Mae grins, soggy but no less determined. "I'm gonna be her _best_ friend," she decides. "Just see if I don't!"  
  
So Mae makes it a habit to visit the priory when she can, just to ask Father Nomah if Celica can play. And usually Celica doesn't want to, but one time she catches sight of Celica through the window and calls to her directly, and then Celica _has_ to join. But they pick strawberries from the thicket around the forest Mae's not allowed to explore, and even in the summer heat it's a wonderful time— she and Boey trade barbs and throw berries and one time Celica catches one in her mouth, which they try to re-create for Genny and Father Nomah later, without success.  
  
The summer is much more fun with a new friend. Mae learns that Celica comes from the mainland and she used to live in a little village called Ram, but her face darkens whenever Mae tries to ask why she left, so Mae eventually stops asking. It doesn't matter that much, anyway— that's all in the past, and she's Celica's friend in the present, so why bother dwelling on what's already happened?  
  
The summer fades into fall. Mae and Celica climb the roof of the priory to look for shooting stars. It's cold so they're bundled into coats, though Mae's is buttoned wrong because she's not good at taking the time to align the halves of it.  
  
Celica sighs. Her breath turns to mist in the chilly autumn air. "Mae, do you ever think about what you're going to do when you're grown?" she asks.  
  
"Not really," Mae admits. "Why?"  
  
Celica shrugs. "Just thinking," she says. "I didn't think I'd be here this long. I thought it'd just be 'til Grandpapa came back and found somewhere safe."  
  
"Safe?" Mae repeats, frowning.  
  
"I'm special," Celica sighs. Mae deduces that _special_ is not a good thing in this case. "It means a lot of people want me dead, but a lot of people also don't want me dead, and they're fighting over it but not like armies do it because you can't tell who's on what side until they try to stab you. Or burn your house down, or kill your friends."  
  
Half of that goes over Mae's head. "That seems a little excessive for wanting just one kid dead," she says matter-of-factly. "I mean, kids are small. Any grownup with arm strength could just chuck one of us into a lake and be done with it."  
  
"Apparently that hasn't occurred to anyone," Celica says wryly. "But that's why I had to leave Ram village. Dangerous things happen around me."  
  
Mae wants to shrug, turn it into a joke like she always does— but Celica has her arms around her knees, neck looking up at the sky, and even Mae can tell it's not the time for a joke.  
  
Celica sighs. "I'll just have to leave Novis," she says. "Something dangerous is going to happen and-and-and somebody will get hurt, maybe you or Boey or Genny or Father Nomah— and I'll need to leave again and find somewhere else. Maybe I could live by myself, as a hermit in the mountains or something, and live off berries and tree bark."  
  
Mae tries to picture Celica alone in the mountains like some forest creature, staying away from even the animals for fear of hurting them, foraging for nuts and hibernating through the winter. She can't— Celica is far too elegant. (Though, alright— elegant isn't the right word for Celica, not since she saw Celica look Father Nomah in the eye and eat a wharf roach without hesitation. There's a raw power in Celica that Mae has only just tasted, and it's far from elegant.)  
  
"Sounds lonely," Mae says.  
  
Celica shrugs. "Yeah, but," she replies. "If it means nobody else gets hurt, I can deal with lonely."  
  
That sounds extremely unfair. "Now wait just a second," Mae begins. "You're saying that for nobody to get hurt you _have_ to be lonely?"  
  
"It's the only way," Celica shrugs.  
  
"No it's not!" Mae protests. "Yeah, something dangerous could happen and you could have to leave— so what?"  
  
Celica blinks. "What?"  
  
Mae swallows. "You've still got me," she says. "I can go with you. Or I can protect you, in case something happens! I'm great at magic, I can— I can go wherever you need me to! Wherever it is you go! Anywhere! I can keep you safe. Why bother finding a place when the place can go with you, right?"  
  
Celica isn't sure what to say. "Mae—"  
  
"Alright, Boey can come too," Mae admits. "Two protectors are better than one, and you'd get tired of me if it were just us."  
  
Celica giggles. That was the goal, and Mae feels the tension in the air between them dissipate. She cracks a grin. Celica's laugh sounds like wind chimes and it's the most lovely thing Mae has ever heard.  
  
"Alright, Mae," she decides. "Alright, you can come with me as my protector. And Boey."  
  
"And Boey," Mae agrees. And they spend the rest of the night watching the stars until Celica dozes off on Mae's shoulder, so Mae has to sneak her back into her room and then go home. They're dead tired the next day, but it's worth it. Every second with Celica, to Mae, is worth it.  
  
But the need for a protector never arises. The years pass, seasons fading into one another as seamlessly as the waves soak into the sand on the shore. They grow together, and Mae is taller at first but then Celica and Boey shoot up like weeds when they're all going through the ugly-duckling stages of adolescence. Mae thinks this is _extremely_ unfair, mostly because she can't use Boey as an armrest anymore.  
  
So it's seven years before any protecting is needed, and Mae is glad for that— it means she can protect Celica with thunder magic that no longer blows up in her face when she tries to use it, and it means she's stronger and smarter than she was when she was ten and thought she could rhyme _Boey_ with _loony_. Celica's grown, too— more mature than Mae and Boey by quite a bit, almost too mature to be fun anymore. Her cloak flutters in the sea breeze when they set foot on the ship that'll take them to the mainland.  
  
She turns, hair glowing like fire in the sun. Her eyes crinkle when she smiles. "Well," she calls to Mae. "Are you coming with me or not?"  
  
And Mae grins, and stretches, and says "Didn't I promise I'd go anywhere with you?"


End file.
